For those of you who haven’t yet heard of it, NaNoWriMo ( Nah-No-Re-Mo shortened to Nano) is a month-long writing challenge, where you write 1667 words every day.

Why does that sound so very simple and yet weirdly specific?

Because the actual goal is to reach 50,000 words by the end of the month, and to do that your goal is to write at least 1667 words every day during the month of November.

That’s right, from the bum-end of Halloween to the beginning of socially-acceptable Christmas Music, the challenge is to write a novel. You’ve been planning, in general, to write a novel for some time, and this is a chance to kick into gear, with events in your area with fellow writers if you’re interested, and it’s entirely free. People who reach the 50k goal even get a free printed copy of their very own novel, and discounts for otherwise pricey writing software.

It’s neat.

My sister Lexy (link to her blog) has participated with me, and this year we’ve convinced our dear Mother to join the fun.

I’ve participated for roughly 5 years now, and recently succeeded in reaching 50k this summer, in Camp Nano, and have succeeded in 3 of those 5 years… but it’s always a question of what I want to work on.

Sometimes I’ll work on fanfiction, because I like writing fanfiction, and it’s good to stay in practice. Because fanfiction is writing practice, pretty much. What I post is pretty darn popular, too, so as I post I get a lot of feedback. And that’s nice. Link to my stuff.

But I also do work on my own original stuff… I’ve got a couple of stories ongoing, but I work on them pretty consistently during the year, so when I decide not to write fanfiction in November, I like to start on a whole new story.

I’m going to write a blog-story, from the pov of my main character Sunny. He can control clouds–well, only the one, and it only sort of does what he wants, but it’s not like he can tell anyone about it, so… blogging. Nice and anonymous.

I think that one of the main reasons people don’t write is because they think they have to be good at it right away.

That it should come along the same way we first learned to write, in that it comes along with reading.

You read a lot–ergo, you must be able to write well, hmm??? You’ve read so much you should be able to pump out a good novel pretty easily, right?

Noooooo, that’s not quite how it works.

I should probably change that ‘noooo’, make it something less negative, but I’m not quite sure at the moment how I should be getting across that sort of tone.

Anyway, not to toot my own horn-or, as the case might be, review my own book–but I’m a pretty good writer.

I don’t always have the best grammar, and the from vs form thing that slips past spell check, along with the randomly floating o’s and s’s and f’s drive me crazy… but I’m a good writer.

Mostly Fanfiction right now, but I find it’s easier to iron out plot holes and specifics in fanfiction, easier to get regular feedback, and since in fanfiction you usually have a good idea of what a character is like it means you can really focus on the plot.

It also makes you focus on the actual characters and how to build a situation around preconceived notions, and how to change them.

And, to go back to what I was saying before about the correlation between reading and writing–reading a lot doesn’t mean that you’ll be great at writing, or that writing will come to you easily.

But it’ll help. Boy, it’ll help.

I read a lot of fanfiction, and I read a lot of ‘real’ books, the published kind.

I think fanfiction writers have it a bit easier, because when you read fanfiction you already have a bit of an emotional investment in certain characters (To quote my friend Lisa, who’s been agonizing about the amount of tragedy that’s made it into my And I Wake Up story, “Ianto my babbbyyyyyyy!”), the kind that ‘real’ published books have to work towards.

Gah, and if it tells you how much of a good writer I am, I’m usually a bit better at being cohesive and keep the flow in my writing, but in case you didn’t notice the title, what I’m *trying* to tell you about is my first writing experience.

The non-school kind.

Short stories you’re assigned to write don’t count. Not really to me, but then I never actually got into my short stories, so…

Yeah.

Emma (Middle sibling of te household) has been writing since forever (I think she got into it when she was in the womb…might be why I like reading, she probably left wall scrawls as an embryo–no, weird gross thought, weird gross thought, ick, stoppit, blah, no mom thoughts like that >< ), and if you have siblings you know that some things just end up being their thing.

Like you each have your own seat in the car, your own certain seat, same with your spot at the table, and really, jut about everything gets turned into a ‘but that’s MY ____’ situation at some point.

So writing was her thing.

Anime was also her thing… at first.

She was the one to introduce me to my first fandom. InuYasha.

_-_-_-Brief intermission-_-_-_

Fandom: [Fan-dumb] A show/book/series/pretty much anything that you ‘get into’ and follow regularly. Like Gleeks. Or the people into CSI: (whatever). Or Whovians. Trekkies. Whatever. Lots of stuff.

InuYasha: [Ee-nu-yah-sh-ah] anime about a school girl Kagome who gets pulled back to the feudal era by a demon, where she sees and meets other demons, freaks out when the half-demon InuYasha tries to kill her for looking like the Priestess Kikyo–a pretty bitchy character who pinned him to a tree with an arrow for various reasons. There’s also a jewel. Check out the link, but that’s enough of a hook, yeah? Yeah.

_-_-_-Intermission over-_-_-_

So she got me into InuYasha, and I got really into it. Like, I had my own tape so I could record the episodes every Friday… I can’t remember when it was on, but One Piece was on right after it. I also looked up art for it, fan art and everything, and then I was introduced to fanfiction. Went a bit (a lot) crazy over it.

Yeah. I was born to dive head first into fandom.

But, like every person first getting into a fandom, and then discovering fanfction, I thought I could include my own character. I would write fanfiction. That’s different from writing regular stories, yeah? Yeah.

So I developed my character in my head, first, occupying my thoughts to this development during long car rides, when I was bored in class, any time I was listening to music… pretty much all the damn time.

Her name was Alex. (Lexy, I know, but I needed a unisex name because Alex could also turn herself into a himself at will, and yeah this says something about how well this character works out…)

Alex had black hair with silver tips–not dyed, you understand, but whenever you cut her hair the tips would slowly bleach to silver–usually pressed down with a baseball cap.

To those who know me you now know when this character came to be. For those who don’t, I wore a baseball cap all the freaking time for a certain age, indoors or outdoors didn’t matter. Linkylink for more on that.

She also wore a hoody and jeans, usually, and she kicked ass. She came in and fixed every damn thing that I found wrong in the series. Just about every character had a crush on her, and any time a character canonically did something that annoyed me, she would show them the error of their ways–Kikyo was a thing of the past, never mind the evil Naraku (who was also crushing on Alex, btw), and EERYBODY LOVED HER! She was awesome, and had twin brothers who she loved very much (who I think were named Dylan and Scott…) and were the only ones to be able to rein her in.

She could do no wrong, she occasionally had animal ears and a tail, and, oh yeah, she could bring people back to life when she cried about her tragic past.

…

Okay, so I created a Mary Sue. The annoyingly perfect character that has no place outside of a children’s show.

To be fair (to me), I think this all happened around ’06 or so… and to put that into perspective, I posted my first actual consistent writing venture in ’09.

So one day I sat down and started to write the ultimate intro of Alex to the show, the rock solid base to my obviously huge venture…

It would be epic, Alex would be flippant about her awesomeness, shit would go down and she’d be able to deal with it looking like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth… Oh yeah, I was prepared to write the epic story for this girl.

…

I think I got maybe half a page of writing out before I got bored and frustrated, saved the file to a floppy disk, and went to play outside.

I think it may still be on a floppy disk, somewhere. Lost. Forgotten. Ish.

Aaaand once again, that was probably around ’06, maybe ’07… 2-3 years before I actually tried again.

I think I’m rather lucky. I managed to get my first bad writing out of the way. I also managed to figure out what a waste of time a Mary Sue is, though it wasn’t for a long time that I found out what it *was*…. this, however, didn’t make me stop imagining her universe jumping to other shows, and singing and dancing and FIXING her way through their fandoms, either.

I just think more people should write, take a chance, and invest themselves into making up a whole new character, a whole new world *cue music* and all that jazz.

Even if your first attempt isn’t something you’re happy with, or, hell, if your first attempt is something that you are happy with, you shouldn’t be afraid to just sit down and write.

My challenge to you is to joining Camp NaNoWriMo, set a goal for yourself (the default is 50,000 words, but some people are doing 10,000 and less), and reach it before the end of the month.
Also, Regular NaNoWriMo, that’s in November. That’s awesome, too.

I’m at 17000-something right now, and that means that I have to write about 7000 words today to get caught up, and wow is that not happening.

I’m not working on only one story this time, and my original plan was to do a Sherlock (BBC) story, but the story that I had in mind is coming out as slow as molasses, and I’m currently hating it despite how amazing I know it would be (it’s been knocking about my head for a while now), so I’m working on something else right now.

I’ve moved on to Torchwood fanfiction. If you’re interested in the show, you’ll know that the end of season three is wrong in so many ways, and if you haven’t gotten there, then you’ll know that the end of season 2 is also horrible (and awesome, don’t forget awesome), and if you aren’t there yet, then you’ll know that the end of season 1 is horrible, but, like the end of season 2, awesome, especially if you watch Dr. Who, because then you’re also saying “OH MY GOD I SAW THAT EPISODE!”

Fun fact for you: When moving the copies of Doctor Who, to keep them from being stolen, they labeled them “Torchwood”, an anagram of Doctor Who.

Now I wait a moment as you spell out Torchwood out of Doctor Who, and Doctor Who out of Torchwood.

Go ahead, I did the same.

But, anyway, I’m doing a ‘Fix-It’ starting after season 3, and I have nearly 10,000 words of it written. When I post it, feel free to check it out (I’ll add two links at the end of this post)

How have I got 17-something k words if I only have about 10k of this story written. That’s me working on my HP fanfic, and my two other Sherlock stories, and adding in the 500-something words of my planned BBC Sherlock story, the one that’s hating on my brain.

Good Luck Fellow NaNo-ers, and for those following Lexy’s blog, know she’s working on extensions of the stories she’s posted on things like Red Writing Hood and Trifecta. HERE for a link to her story archives, maybe she’ll post her story somewhere (maybe on her blog?), I’ll bug her about it if you do 🙂

My Torchwood Fix-It story: And I Wake Up (Lexy, don’t read it before you see season 3.)

Sanity: I don’t have the required license, and I wouldn’t trust her behind the wheel.*looks skeptical*

Insanity: *grins* Ahahaha! Carry on. *Serious look*

Me: whatever. You’re the driver of a bus, and 10 people come on.

Sanity: okaaay…

Insanity: WAIT!

Me: What?

Insanity: *serious* Does the bus have four wheels…?

Me: Um, yes…?

Insanity: …Of cheese?

Sanity writes that down. I think for a moment.

Me: Yes, someone brought on 4 wheels of cheese onto the bus. CONTINUING! At the next stop, 3 people get off, and 7 people get onto the bus.

Sanity: Were there any people on the bus initially? Before the first 10 people came on?

Insanity: Did the person with the cheese get off?

Me: No, no one was on the bus in the beginning, and yes, the person with the cheese left.

Sanity nods.

Insanity: Ah. Continue.

Me: At the next stop, another 3 people get off, and… 13 people get on. At the next stop, 1 person gets off, and 7 people get on, at the next stop, another 2 people get off and 11 people get on, and at the next stop 3 people get off and a crowd of 16 gets on.

Insanity: Wow, popular bus isn’t it? and that’s AFTER the cheese lady gets off… how strange… *Shakes head* What’s the world coming to?

Me: um, okay… I’m going to finish this joke soon… um–

Sanity: Before you continue, please realize that most busses can hold 52 to 56 people at once. The current passenger count is– *checks notebook*–52.

Insanity: HAH! No, it’s a trick question! Trying to fool me like that, what do you take me for? Do you think I’m crazy or something?

Sanity: Yes.

Me: How do you figure that?

Sanity turns to a new page in her notebook and raises a pen, ready for the answer.

Insanity: Well how are we supposed to know what kind of pen the bus driver writes with? Hmm?

Me: what?

Sanity: What do writing utensils have to do with the question?

Insanity shoves a hand down the front of her shirt, rummages for a moment, and pulls out a handful of pens held together by an elastic band.

Insanity: Look, I use red pens for my ‘a’s and a green pen for my ‘u’s and this pretty orange one for my ‘x’s, but how am I supposed to know what colour to use for the ‘i’s? Hmm? That changes CONSTANTLY!

Me: what?

Sanity takes a deep breath after she finishes writing.

Sanity: When she said eyes, she meant eyes like what you use to look at things, mot ‘I’s like written letters. The joke is to make you forget that she said that YOU were the bus driver, and that you know your own eye colour.

Me: What?

Insanity blinks at Sanity before giving Me a strange look.

Insanity: Well how the hell would you expect anyone to figure THAT out?

Me: O_O…

-~-~-~-~

As you can see, sometimes I can’t keep up with either my Sane or Insane sides…

I haven’t written about these two for a while, thought I’d remind you all of them.

Also, I’ve figured out that there aren’t only two rooms in my head, there are three. One side for Sanity, the other for Insanity, and one in the middle as neutral (Me) territory. That way Insanity and Sanity don’t have to invade each others turfs, and therefore affect each other… No, they leave all that to me.

*sigh*

Good luck to all Nano-ers, and as an experienced Nano-er, listen to your Insane sides and let them loose on the page, but let your Sane sides help keep you from putting off working on it or from making a detour from your plan of having this character or that character introduced or killed off. (Insanity likes killing off characters, especially the ones you have due to necessity rather than like)

Also let Sanity into your life to tell you what time you should go to bed. Sanity is regularly poking me and telling me that if I want to get at least 7 hours of sleep, I should go to bed NOW. You won’t always listen (especially in November), but sleep is good and a great way to let your mind wander around Sanity and Insanity’s rooms without getting scared back to your own room. I’m not participating this year as I’m being… *sigh* RESPONSIBLE and dealing with school work over writing. Fanfiction.net followers know of what I am doing to replace that. Check out It’s Green on my profile, same username on ffn.net to see my replacement.

Everyone Wish a GOOD LUCK to Lexy0387 this year in her quest for NaNoWriMo dominance, and suggest things to buy Gwynn to distract him that WON’T be bitten in half and swallowed within the first 5 minutes 😀

This is a shout out to all NaNoWriMo participants! Regardless of where you are, this is a GO YOU! Kind of thing!

This is also to see how many People who Blog also NaNo!

For those who don’t know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. This is a month-long event, whereupon you are challenged to site a novel in one month–more specifically, a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. In the states, I believe that the minimum number of pages that will be accepted as a novel, is about 25o pages in the book (picture a book right now. Do not picture 250 pages of word document pages, or whatever program you usually write on), which amounts to about 50,000 words.

Yeah, you who do not NaNo (yet!) look at that number and say “Um, NO.”

What you do not realize though, is that 50,000 words/30 days means about 1667 words/day…

That is a little more than 1 page of writing per day.

One girl last year finished in 5 days, since she challenged herself to write 10,000 words/day, but I wouldn’t hold up your writing style to her. At the TGIO (Thank God it’s Over) end of the month party, she read a part of what she wrote, and it was kind of crap. It was full of “And then she flew, and flew some more, and then she soared for a bit, and then dove down, down until the last moment, and then she pulled up and flew a bit more…”

Yeah, I wasn’t terribly impressed. In general, you DO want to write as much as you can, and then edit after November, but THIS particular writing style is the style of How-Can-I-Squish-In-More-Words?

Yeah, it’s impressive that she wrote a little more than 300,000 words in the month, but why would you want a free printing of something that you didn’t even bother going to a thesaurus for?

What? I didn’t mention that part yet?

Well yes, the goal for NaNoWriMo is to encourage people to write that book that they’ve always thought about writing, but never had the time/encouragement to actually start, but the bonus for actually reaching the 50k mark is a free, book bound print of your book.

Free.

FREE.

Now that I’m a University student, I can appreciate that part of it a LOT more.

So even if you don’t think you’ll be able to write 50 Thousand words this coming November, sign up, it’s free, has events where you can meet people who also enjoy writing (People of Toronto, You will meet Earl, and will be able to write out How he will Die in your novel. He’s awesome and funny, and writing how he dies in your novel is one of the main jokes of Toronto’s Nano crowd.).

The all night write in, Write on a Subway, The numerous Cafe write ins, the Midway party, the TGIO party, yes, all of this you could go to.

More information can be found at their website, nanowrimo.org. Sign up, and join your home region to get info on where/wen all the events are.

What do you get when you shove 50+ writers into a cafe?

A number of people making jokes about how they should all go to a bar instead.

I wrote this because I realized that I had to add Ottawa as one of my regions… What a change up…

Also, if you Nano in Ottawa, add me as a friend! Doodled93 people! I’ve had to move from Toronto, and I know NO Nanoers here!